Implications of Land Use/Land Cover Change in the Buffer Zone of a National Park in the Tropical Andes

Abstract

The impacts of land use and land cover (LULC) change in buffer zones surrounding protected ecological reserves have important implications for the management and conservation of these protected areas. This study examines the spatial and temporal patterns of LULC change along the boundary of Rio Abiseo National Park in the Northern Peruvian Andes. Landscape change within four ecological zones was evaluated based on trends expected to occur between 1987 and 2001. Landsat TM and ETM imagery were used to produce LULC classification maps for both years using a hybrid supervised/unsupervised approach. LULC changes were measured using landscape metrics and from-to change maps created by post-classification change detection. Contrary to expectations, tropical upper wet montane forest increased despite being threatened by human-induced fires and cattle grazing of the highland grasslands inside the park. Within the park's buffer zone, tropical moist forest remnants were fragmented into more numerous and smaller patches between 1987 and 2001; this was in part due to conversion into agricultural land. The methods used in this study provide an effective way to monitor LULC change detection and support the management of protected areas and their surrounding environments.

Andean Land Use and Biodiversity: Humanized Landscapes in a Time of Change

“…Small habitat patches have significant edge effect, while isolated patches have reduced gene flow and increased rates of local population extinctions. The amount of core forest habitat and the shape of forest patches change as human populations increase and land use intensifies (Kintz et al, 2006), thus likely also reducing population sizes of species requiring large core habitats (e.g., Ewers & Didham, 2006). The rate, type, and location of habitat change in relation to intrinsic population increases of the species of concern are parameters involved in the likelihood of local extinctions (Schrott et al, 2005).…”

“…Land change science draws on a wide range of social, biological, and physical sciences for paradigms and explanations (Gutman et al, 2004). Kintz et al (2006) used this approach to map and quantify change in landscape mosaics of northern Peru over a 13-year period. Most change was related to altered land use as local population size doubled with in-migration.…”

Spatial and Temporal Land Cover Changes in the Simen Mountains National Park, a World Heritage Site in Northwestern Ethiopia

“…Scholes and Breeman [3] indicated that in addition to fossil fuels, the conversion of natural vegetation to agriculture is partially responsible for changes in the atmospheric composition and climate conditions. Despite the importance of landscape conversion to fulfill basic needs of humankind, LCCs such as deforestation have been recognized as major problems in the world and are drivers of global warming [4,5], which result in negative consequences for life on earth.…”

Ecology of Land Cover Change in Glaciated Tropical Mountains

“…In tropical mountains, increases in woody plant coverage were reported based on Landsat satellite images by Kintz et al (2006) and Lipton (2008), with studies of seedling establishment in the timberline zone by Rehm and Feeley (2013), and in mapping done using MODIS data by Aide et al (2013), who report many dry and steep areas with expanding or regrowing forests or shrublands. These changes are those expected globally, and are also those found in the modeling done by Tovar et al (2013), who predict shifts in ecological zones, with more area in the tropical Andes with montane shrublands and seasonally dry forest.…”